Are Weekly Inflation Forecasts Informative?
Summary
Are weekly inflation forecasts informative? Although several central banks review and discuss monetary policy issues on a bi-weekly basis, there have been few attempts by analysts to construct systematic estimates of core inflation that supports such a decision-making schedule. The timeliness of news releases and macroeconomic revisions are recognized to be an important information source in real-time estimation. We incorporate real-time information from macroeconomic releases and revisions into our weekly updates of monthly Swiss core inflation using a common factor procedure. The weekly estimates for Swiss core inflation find that it is worthwhile to update the forecast at least twice a month.
- Issue:
- 05
- Pages:
- 43
- JEL classification:
- E52, E58
- Keywords:
- Inflation, Common Factors, Sequential Information Flow
- Year:
- 2008